Friendship

This week I learned what true friendship means. It has taken a long time for me to be able to reach out. I am so used to being the one reached to, the one who is 'there' ready to be counted. I had forgotten the golden rules of true friendship.
When ever you feel lost, afraid or lonely it is a friend who fills the need. Partners can and do come and go in our lives, our own families still have the odd bit of sibling rivalry or the momentary eldest/youngest/favoured moment. Friends love you...just because your you.
It is very easy within a friendship for each person to fall into a category, one defined by circumstance and sometimes even our peers. The strong one/blonde one.thin one. prettier one is often peer group observation. Within the friendship itself the people involved can and do accept certain roles, the mentor, the one with money, the one without a partner each aspect feeding into the roles adopted and sometimes creating a balance that 'works' for each person to a degree.
Yet there is a time, when it is a role reversal and sometimes it is necessary on so many different levels, that the complexity creates a bond within the friendship so close, so strong that family start to feel it.
I have lost count of the times one or the other of 'us' in a friendship has been the subject of family jealousies. " she has too much influence over you", " don't you think your seeing too much of each other " hasn't she got somewhere else to go" yet the two within the friendship are comfortable, content and don't feel, see or experience any of the negatives being implied by others.
Silence is a shared comfort, to be able to read a book, watch a programme, do a little hobby in a friendship and 'not need to talk', to be able to offer without thought of cost to the other and feel that it is right.

Now and again a friendship is a threat to a relationship. The new partner or even sometimes the established partner feels the 'influences' of 'the friend' intrude, create problems within the relationship itself. This is often part of not only jealousy but fears. The wild one might take out the partner and they might 'get up to no good' , judgements made from their own insecurities.
So many layers, meanings and definitions within a friendship and one important little factor, that occasionally we can forget.
I nearly forgot. It was a small hesitation, a single moment when I needed to ask for help...and so nearly didn't. Pride, fear, embarrassment ? haven't a clue, I didn't look that deep. All I know is that for one moment all I could think was that I am so used to being the strong one, the one with answers for others that reaching out, asking for help was an embarrassing moment in my life.
But within a friendship, the give and the take are not counted. Sometimes it is necessary when so strong to realise the weaknesses that have been hidden. The pride or the ego that wants to keep things to the self is really a warning to stop, think and share. Above all to share.
I used to say to my children...if you can't tell your mother...then you shouldn't be doing it.
Well transferred in a way to friendships...if you can't ask for when you are easy with giving then you are defining yourself and placing yourself in an arrogant position of being above the need. Eager to give to feed the ego of superiority or self esteem boosting because you have something your friend hasn't.
I overcame whatever the ego had in place and reached out.
In all that I said and did every single friend 'was there for me' for my need and fulfilled it in some way or another that has both humbled and at the same time made me realise what a very lucky woman I am.
I love my friends
and now I understand, my Friends love me
equally.

That is something no money, no gift, no giving can buy. Only by accepting, with gratitude and understanding do you do your friend a service, you are acknowledging the equality of you both to give and to receive whether it is material, fiscal or emotional. Each gift, each moment of time.

Is beyond price.